WCAG 2.0 is at release candidate stage and if you're bored already you should probably skip this post! One of the big things about WCAG is that they are attempting to make everything automatically testable. The idea is that you should be able to apply a tool and get an accurate idea of your conformance level. WCAG 1 had too many guidelines that you had to do by hand. Quite a chore when your site has over 30 000 pages.

How do you squeeze in more ads into a one-hour program? Channel Ten's found a cunning way.

I came across this phenomenon when watching Burn Notice for the first time on Ten a few nights ago. Something just didn't sound right -- everyone's voice was slightly higher. I played the US source against Channel Ten to make sure I wasn't going insane.

I was right. Everything was slightly higher. This is typically caused by the source being played faster, like when you hit the "2x" button on an audio tape and hear chipmunks.

Jeff Atwood recently wrote an entry about the Fake User Interface (FUI), and how spammers use it to install spyware on unsuspecting user's PCs.

Trawling through the comments, you get various suggestions as to how to combat the problem. But they won't work. Things like disabling javascript, banning javascript alert(), having a random window chrome, even educating users about spyware; all of them are doomed to failure, because of the two invariants:

So, you paid your $500-or-so to the union every year, expecting that they'll stand up for you, your working conditions, and your fellow union members, right?

Hate to break it to you, but all your hard-earned dollars are going towards is funding union propaganda.

The ACCC's certified agreement is due to expire at the end of November; and under the new workplace relations laws, is required to hold a ballot to decide whether employees wanted a union-negotiated agreement, or an employee-collective agreement. The union (the CPSU) lost, badly (313 to 151).

Zend, a PHP programmers best friend. A mostly component IDE that generally does everything you need to design and write PHP (people design in PHP ha!). It's let down in a number of areas (well it's on Java for one). But the one that frustrates me the most is the way it organises open files.

64-bit Windows has been around for around four years now. Some companies have realised that every CPU sold today is 64-bit (though, it's disappointing that most manufacturers, like Dell, will only ship the 32-bit version of Windows with your 64-bit CPU). Adobe hasn't realise they've been left behind in 2004 though.

Anything up to a few years ago, when you bought a new computer, there was always that thrill that the new machine just felt so much faster. I'd typically get a new CPU every 2 to 3 years. Upgrading from a 300Mhz Pentium 2 to a 866Mhz Pentium 3; then a 3Ghz Pentium 4. Every time, the machine was around three times faster (and certainly felt it!).